I don't advocate the volunteer companies jump in the middle of a labor dispute.....But... Are they (volunteers) continuing to conduct business as usual? In that...i mean are they continuing to provide service just like they had in the past? Are they responding to calls or are they just not doing anything? I would imagine that if a volunteer company refused to respond they would be in violation of their charter.

09-11 .. 343 "All Gave Some..Some Gave ALL" God Bless..R.I.P.
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IACOJ Minister of Southern Comfort
"Purple Hydrant" Recipient (3 Times)
BMI Investigator
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The comments, opinions, and positions expressed here are mine. They are expressed respectfully, in the spirit of safety and progress. They do not reflect the opinions or positions of my employer or my department.

I believe the companies are responding to fire requests, just not station coverage standby's. They would be responding from their own stations instead of being in the city's station. They will show up, but it may take a few minutes more due to their location.

09-11 .. 343 "All Gave Some..Some Gave ALL" God Bless..R.I.P.
------------------------------
IACOJ Minister of Southern Comfort
"Purple Hydrant" Recipient (3 Times)
BMI Investigator
------------------------------
The comments, opinions, and positions expressed here are mine. They are expressed respectfully, in the spirit of safety and progress. They do not reflect the opinions or positions of my employer or my department.

Trenton is not the only area to do this. Ocean County put out a request years ago for all companies to furnish them with a list of your departments mutual aid companies and their requesting order. The County then compiled these lists and filed them in the round container in the corner. They made up their own lists, and if you request more than 2 companies, a county coordinator is dispatched to assist with more requests. Basically, you can tell them what you want, and they find it for you. It actually works fairly well as it's one less thing for IC to worry about. No one has ever said Yes, I'll respond for them or had any kind of agreement, most companies just go when requested.

The County did though, create a document for all companies to sign, when they created the Forest Fire mutual aid response. That one was done back in 97 and all companies in the county signed that one in agreement.

Does anyone have signed Mutual Aid agreements? Just curious. Who signs them and how long are they for? Most in my area have verbal agreements that were made years and years ago.

Some States, North Carolina and Michigan for example, have Statewide mutual aid compacts (for police, fire, ems, public works, etc.) that are done by Statute and municipal ordinance.

Here in NJ, we have the "If you call me and I have a crew then we will respond" system.

Burlington has the local company specify the first two (?) alarms and then County dispatch figures it out from there. This is probably one of the better systems, that way resources are not pulled in an unbalanced manner.

In Mercer, each company does a box alarm chart and sends it in, but they are not coordinated. I know that is one local company has a working fire, we are called to cover with an engine in one of three houses in that town, but if another company in the same town has a fire, they want our ladder and the other company still wants our engine. There is just no coordination of these plans.